Should You Have a Weapon By The Door?

When disaster strikes in a city most obviously if some people have lost everything they'll want to find out if their friends or family will help them. This is why if you haven't left the city, you'll have a lot of people knocking on your door. Some maybe relatives who you might be willing to help while others might be strangers or even robbers trying to steal whatever you have.

That's why you need to have a weapon by the door just in case. If someone does manage to force their way into your house you can use the weapon to subdue to them or force them to leave.

 

Be smart and always carry a weapon on your person. Don't place them around the house because you have to move to where they are to get them. If you have a weapon on you, all you need to do is draw it and use it.

 

^ Agreed. And a pistol can be used for defense until a long gun is reached in one's abode or elsewhere. A handgun one is proficient with that is on the person is better than the AR in another room.

 

When the major hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit here years ago we all carried our guns on us. I didn't want to be caught without it. Fortunately no one in my family had to use their weapons, but we were prepared if we had to.

 

I feel like if you're in a disaster situation like that, you would probably want to have your weapon on you at all times. Leaving a loaded weapon unattended at a point of entry seems like an opportunistic armed robbery waiting to happen.

 

We live in the suburbs and our village is not thickly populated. But cases of robbery occurs often that's why we do not trust the place. But since we don't have a gun, our only weapon by the door of our bedroom is the rattan baton. It can maim an intruder and even kill if hit hard on the head. Fortunately we haven't experienced a break in.

 

Well not everybody will knock on the doors! Robbers expecially, so I think that keeping a weapon nearby your door could be even more dangerous than not have it at all!
You should keep your weapon on you, never leave it. You need to be safe all the time: in this cases, you can't trust anyone.

 

I always have a weapon close at hand. I've taught all my children gun safety & how to shoot. They see & use firearms enough that when one is out in the open they don't even bat an eye. They know to respect them but not fear them.

 

Well, I think a door should have a tiny lenses or whole so we may be able to see who is knocking, the next thing is to have something that would make the half open to interrogate the purpose of the visit. Weapon should be with in your reach in case intruders attack. But should not be reachable by kids always.

 

my kids don't reach for my guns, they have their own

 

We don't keep weapons by the door because if the intruder will break in and used it, it would be a great danger. The best way is to keep your weapons within is your reach rather placing it any location inside your house where you can't reach it because as the professional advice I heard on television, always hide our knives or anything that would be used by the intruder once they break in. I feel thankful that we haven't experienced a break in yet.

 

The law is a bit weird about this in Britain, it all comes back to premeditation of violence making it so that you can't claim self defence.
If you lean a baseball bat in the corner behind your front door it's a weapon but put a ball and a mit with it and you could argue that they were just discarded sports equipment and the bat was a weapon of opportunity.
So much for"an Englishman's home is his castle."

 

Depends, if you live in a dangerous place you must, but if the place you live is quiet and paceful is not necesary, but never us will know can happen, so better just in case have one, can be of help some day for deal with a thief or a agressor.

 

I agree. Also, i'd go a bit further here and advise people to keep weapons in strategic places spread throughout the house. And one besides your bed. Of course, it doesn't have to be firearms. I have a hunting knife by my night shelf.

 

By the door in the bed in the shower in the refrigerator in the cabinet in the tool box in the back of the toilet bowl in the laundry room

 

So, what if they come in through the window? No, you should keep it right beside your bed or on you. And keep back-up weapons everywhere.

 

While I heartily agree that there should be a weapon by the door...more than one in fact...not counting the one that should be ON YOUR PERSON, especially as your scenario dictates that the SHTF, so no one who is coming to your door can be assumed to be "safe".

My concern though is your specified reference to "subdue them or force them to leave" idea.

If by subdue, in law enforcement parlance, you mean to "overcome or bring under control"...then I have to wonder what you plan to do with them once they are subdued? Are you prepared to detain them? If the SHTF, then who is coming to take custody of them, or relieve you of the need to maintain control over them?

Secondly...why would you "force them to leave" under the proposed scenario? That's dangerous thinking. Forcing them to leave is only giving them the opportunity (and more likely the information they need) to gather friends to come back and take what couldn't be taken first.

As a long time police officer who has dealt with more than a few home invasions, I can tell you that the extreme vast majority of them are carried out by multiple aggressors. Moreover, they involve violence. This is the paradigm in so called "normal" times. When the SHTF, then you can expect immediate, overwhelming, violence...and that leaves no room to "subdue or force them to leave". You have one smart choice and if you haven't taken that decision right now...then you better reflect on it and make it.

 

As LaTrans said, on the person.

Must have early alert system. Original mechanism was the dog.

Often the victims are met by invaders who have already entered the dwelling. This is one of THE reasons for carry permit.

 

why, lonewolf...I thought your location didn't have bad guys...

 

I keep a firearm in the bedroom and one in the kitchen. This is my primary setup which allows me to generally be a few steps from a gun without having to cross by the threat to get to it.

I also keep other cold weapons in various places around the house, that I can pick up. After picking up a cold weapon like a sword, bat or bear spray, I move towards a firearm to upgrade as soon as possible.

 

When I'm in my home or out at the tool shed / work shed, I usually have a small handgun in my pocket. At night, it's often a cute derringer I like (that derringer will blow a nasty hole through a pressure-treated 2" x 4"). Though you may find me with a .357 stuck in my belt.

There's a bunch of crude "humans" who live around here. Just so long as they are beating the hell out of each other, I don't care. Seen drug dealers doing their business through open car windows.

I gotta have a couple of long guns out of the safe due to critters such as dogs and bears. Rare that bears come down out the mountains where I'm living now (only seen two). Common occurrence in my home small town -- we were one mtn range over from a bear sanctuary mtn range, so they'd show up (one bruin kept breaking limbs in a neighbor's apple orchard). Mean dogs are another matter -- there's no shortage of them.

One safe of mine is a quick-code / quick-open safe. I put the bolt to one of my deer rifles in that safe and keep the rifle out. The rifle's mag is loaded as is the buttstock loops. Within seconds, I could have that puppy ready to whack a big mean whatever ... or shoot through a car. If someone breaks into my home and is not eaten by our dog (stout as an ox) and doesn't mind listening to an alarm going off and steals my rifle, that thief will not have a usable weapon, for they will NOT be able to get into that safe and retrieve the bolt.

Bears are lazy. I worry more about the two legged, non-feathered, 6+ ft tall, 280 lb idiots on drugs.

 

I do... it's a shotgun. It has hung on pegs like these for over thirty years, a little over head high. The door is to the left. It will not fall off the pegs unless there is a earthquake. I showed this photo and someone thought it would fall off the pegs. Sometimes I think the internet has created loonies.

 

I bother no one and limit my interactions to a smile and wave as I pass by.
No one bothers me, I am left alone, 100m away there are suicides and druggie fights but they never come my way!
Here 24 years now, even the druggies that moved in next door never in the nine months they were there came past the open gate, once one stood there looking for some time but then walked off.

I got a bit of a reputation I don't really deserve but I let it ride as its usefull

 

A weapon by the door - no never. I shall tell you why, you get broken into you have provided your intruder with a free weapon. The other absolute no-no is a knife block in the kitchen. You disturb an intruder who is downstairs and you then arm them with a free knife.

Defensive weapons should be kept under the bed for sleeping.

 

We keep an aluminum baseball bat close to the front door. It blends in with the umbrellas and the walking canes.

 

??

Interesting by sekelbos posted Apr 1, 2019 at 10:05 PM

 

WOW!! That gives a whole new meaning to being prepared.

 

Not by the door for the same reason mentioned above, why arm an intruder? I usually have one on my person if I am awake these days. When I am sleeping, there is one within arms reach.